ABSTRACT
No-one is as interested in preserving media organizations as their heads: if an outlet ceases to exist, external agents keep their places, rank-and-file journalists, though they also become losers, have a good chance to find an equivalent position, but chief editors and directors can count on that less frequently. However, this is not the only reason why top media executives may really be recognized as the centre of the universe called “media production.” It is with them that multiple social influences, both from within and from outside media organizations, come together, and it is they who constantly have to strike a balance between all of them. They stand at the boundary of their media organization with the external world as a two-way filter and conductor. Their own resource is also double-faced: for the outside world, they appear as holders of journalistic resource (skills, access to media production etc); for their subordinates in the organization they represent power to create and enforce rules, very much like that of owners or state agents. Sometimes top executives themselves own shares in their company, and quite often they are among its founders. Therefore, practices of media heads can be divided into two big groups: those directed within media organizations and those oriented to the outside world. Proceeding with the topic of the previous chapter, I shall start with the first group and consider media executives’ relationships with rank-and-file journalists.
